ERP for IT Services. From SOW to utilisation: every billable hour tied to revenue.
An IT services firm sells capacity. Kinnow ties each SOW (statement of work) to its timesheets, milestones, support tickets and invoices, so utilisation, bench and margin come from one record instead of three tools.
Industry pack readyHow does Kinnow help an IT services firm? A SOW becomes an engagement with milestones, a rate card by role and approved timesheets. T&M hours and completed milestones become invoices without double billing, support tickets follow the service promise you gave the client (SLA), and recognised and deferred revenue come from the contract. Nothing is billed, filed or paid without a person.
Your firm, in one paragraph.
You sell people. Revenue is billable days on T&M work, milestones on fixed-price work, and monthly support on AMCs. Cost is the same people, billable or not, so the gap between the two is the bench. SOW milestones sit in one tool and timesheets in another, invoices wait for someone to reconcile them, and a support ticket after go-live is rarely charged to the engagement that created it. Multi-element contracts get their revenue rebuilt in a spreadsheet at every close.
Three things keep the delivery head awake: bench time hidden inside an average, a milestone that slips while a team stands idle on someone else's clock, and an incident resolved outside the agreed window that turns into a credit note.
How your month runs on Kinnow
The ready-made setup gives you two step-by-step routines: SOW to utilisation and Incident to resolved.
| Step | Who | What Kinnow does | Where a person approves |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Opportunity to SOW | Sales head | The sales pipeline in Sell takes an opportunity through requirement, SOW proposed, rates negotiated and signed. | A senior person approves before the SOW is signed. Deals over ₹50,00,000 raise a warning. |
| 2. Create the engagement | Delivery head | An engagement is opened in Build with milestones, rate card by role and staffing. | Contracts over ₹50,00,000 need project approval. |
| 3. Deliver and report time | Consultants | Timesheets are filed against the engagement. A chaser lists missing and stale ones. | The engagement lead approves, or sends back with a reason. |
| 4. Accept milestones | Delivery head | A deliverable is submitted for acceptance, can be sent back, and accepted work is billing evidence. Scope drift is compared with the agreed effort. | Client acceptance recorded. |
| 5. Invoice | Accounts | Approved T&M hours are invoiced at the rate fixed on each timesheet; a completed milestone is invoiced once. Kinnow stops the same time being billed twice. | An invoice over ₹10,00,000 needs approval. |
| 6. Support after go-live | Support lead | Each ticket follows an SLA plan with times for responding and resolving. A ticket outside a plan is blocked. A defect can be passed to the engineering backlog, and the ticket waits on hold until it is fixed. | The client confirms the fix before closure. |
| 7. Recognise revenue | Finance controller | A contract is split into its performance obligations by standalone selling price, a schedule of when revenue is earned is built, and a monthly run posts the journal. | A manager activates the contract. |
| 8. Collect | Accounts | The client sees the invoice in the customer portal and can dispute it there; Collections drafts reminders by days overdue. | Escalated reminders go to a person. |
| 9. Close and file | Accounts head | Twelve month-end checks, seven of which must pass. GST and TDS returns are drafted for review and your team uploads them. | People close the books and approve the returns. |
Bring one live SOW; we will show it from timesheet to invoice to recognised revenue.
Utilisation, bench and what a ticket costs
Utilisation over capacity
Billable hours over each person's weekly capacity, never over hours worked, so a bench cannot hide. Bands run from bench to over-committed; a person with no recorded capacity is shown as unknown, not 0%.
Capacity forecast
Who is allocated to what, week by week, shows who is free next month.
Support cost against the engagement
The engagement P&L counts support tickets. Work done and never billed raises a warning, since it quietly eats into margin until renewal.
Revenue by obligation
When one contract has several parts, the price is shared out by selling price and each part is recognised as it is delivered. Deferred revenue is a balance in your books, not a side spreadsheet.
What the IT Services setup gives you
This is the ready-made setup for your industry (we call it an industry pack).
| Limit or rule | Starting figure | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery commitment (contract value) | Over ₹50,00,000 | Project approval |
| Support ticket outside an SLA plan | Always | Blocked |
| Open deal value | Over ₹50,00,000 | Warning |
| Milestone invoice | Over ₹10,00,000 | Approval |
| Manual journal | Over ₹5,00,000 | Approval |
| Return filing, net payable | Over ₹2,00,000 | Approval |
| Support work never billed | Always | Warning |
| Client credit limit | Over ₹10,00,000 | Warning |
Starting figures; set them to what your firm wants reviewed.
Sixteen processes come switched on, with who signs off, in order, for four things: engagements, journals, return filings and invoices. Fifteen ready-made Ask Kinnow questions and ten reports come with it, including the engagement register, milestone status, ticket SLA status, attrition, project cost and support cost by engagement.
Agents for an IT services firm
Engagement Margin Watch
Compares revenue, delivery cost and support cost as the SOW runs and flags drift before the final bill. Shows unknown, not healthy, when it cannot price one.
SLA Alert
Flags a ticket that is about to miss its response or resolution time.
Contract Renewal Watch
Checks contracts nearing their end date so the renewal conversation is scheduled before the AMC lapses.
Project Risk
Scores how far each engagement is slipping and how fast its billing is being used up, from its milestones.
Lead Scorer
Scores each lead from 0 to 100 when it is created or imported, with the reasons and a suggested next step. A person decides who to call.
Sell + AccountCollections
Drafts overdue reminders and steps them up according to how many days a payment is actually late. A person approves each reminder before it goes out.
Account / KnowCash-flow Forecaster
Builds a rolling cash forecast for the next 30, 60 and 90 days from post-dated cheques, bills due and how customers have paid in the past, with a range around each figure to show how sure it is.
VaultAsk Kinnow
Answers questions from your documents and from the records of the applications you use, and only shows what the person asking is allowed to see.
Every agent is validated with each client before it touches their books, and every output waits for a person.
Ask us which of these agents we would switch on first for your delivery team.
Statutory calendar for an IT services firm
Alerts go out 15, 7 and 1 day before each filing. GST is prepared and exported for upload; Kinnow does not file on the portal. Dates change by notification, so your tax executive checks the notified date.
| Obligation | When it falls | What Kinnow prepares |
|---|---|---|
| GSTR-1 | 11th of the next month; 13th for quarterly filers | File built from your sales book |
| GSTR-2B reconciliation, then GSTR-3B | 3B on the 20th | Bills matched against the portal download, then a draft return and a file to upload |
| TDS deposit | 7th of the next month; 30 April for March | Challan drafts by month and section, from your deduction entries |
| TDS returns | 31 July, 31 October, 31 January, 31 May | Quarterly return drafts by form; Kinnow does not file them |
| Payroll | Monthly | PF, ESI, professional tax and salary TDS calculated in a payroll run that a second person approves; PF, ESI and PT return figures prepared from the payslips with gaps listed, not filed |
| E-invoice | On each invoice where your turnover requires it | The e-invoice file, and the reason when the portal rejects one |
What the owner sees
| Ask Kinnow | Answer built from |
|---|---|
| Which engagements are behind on milestones? | Project milestone status |
| Which support tickets are close to breaching? | Ticket SLA status |
| Which engagements are losing money once support is counted? | Support cost by engagement |
| Which support work has been done but never billed? | Support cost by engagement |
| Where is attrition risk concentrated? | Attrition report |
| What has this engagement actually cost us so far? | Project cost register |
Each answer shows its source and what it will cost before it runs. Veil, our privacy layer, holds back bank, tax and ID numbers and swaps names for placeholders before an AI call. It covers Ask Kinnow and most agents today; the rest are being added.
Questions
Can Kinnow show utilisation and bench?
Yes. Billable hours are measured against each person's weekly capacity, with bands from bench to over-committed, and a week-by-week forecast of who is free, from allocations.
Does it handle revenue recognition?
Yes. A revenue contract is split into performance obligations by standalone selling price, a schedule of when revenue is earned is built for each, and a monthly run posts the recognition journal. A manager activates each contract.
Can I bill T&M and milestones on the same engagement?
Yes. Approved timesheets and completed milestones are separate sources, each invoiced once and never twice, and they share one ledger.
Does Kinnow replace our issue tracker?
No. Issues, sprints and releases are there at a basic level, with tickets escalated into them, but source code and CI/CD stay in your DevOps tools.
How are SLA breaches handled?
Each ticket sits on an SLA plan with times for responding and resolving. The industry setup blocks a ticket outside a plan, and an alert flags tickets close to missing their time.
How long does set-up take?
About two weeks to first results for one company: masters, rate cards and opening balances in the first week, agents switched on and a first close in the second.
Show me Kinnow for IT Services.
Answer three questions. Get the applications, the agents and a two-week plan for your business.